Vandeventer + Carlander Architects - Floating Home, Lake Union in Seattle

Monday, 23 March 2009 02:51

The house is located on a floating home dock on Lake Union, in Seattle. The city has a long tradition with floating homes. The architects wanted to echo the spirit of the floating home community, with a project that speaks to the promise of the future without ignoring the community’s storied past.

The site has a prime location with great views towards Downtown Seattle to the south as well as Lake Union directly beneath it. The clients program called for a high percentage of allowable area to be interior space. Consequently, many walls were pushed to the float’s perimeter and presented a large box to the smaller scaled neighbors.

The integration of the project within its surroundings pushed for dematerializing the box to fit the scale of neighboring homes was investigated.

The selective carving of the exterior envelope to promote views and light coupled with coding the programmatic functions using material and color allowed for a three dimensional "reading" of the program whereby reducing the larger structure into scale with its neighbors.

With a small lot size and the intent to maximize the indoor space as well as the external areas, the architects flipped the typical residential plan, placing the public spaces on the upper level and the private space on the float level.

Putting the public area on the upper floor allowed a consolidation of the spaces dedicated for entertainment into one large flexible space. These spaces look out on an outdoor terrace, accessible via a sliding wall system. Once the sliding wall gets opened, the terrace becomes a direct extension of the interior space, and the separation between the indoor and the outdoor gets blurred.

Beside the entrance and access to the upper level, the float level is host to the bedrooms, including the Guest Bedroom and the Master Bedroom. These rooms possess a generous amount of glazing that allows them to profit from the view.

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